“Goodnight,” she said against my mouth.

“Goodnight, little lamb,” I said.

Stepping away felt like stepping onto shards of glass, and I couldn’t help myself, she was so wide-eyed and so open to my love, and it was instinct more than anything else that led to trace a small cross on her forehead.

A blessing.

And hopefully a promise to do better.

My phone buzzed violently on my counter.

It was Monday, two days post-not-really-sex, and I was thinking about how I was meeting Poppy in just a few minutes for lunch. I was cleaning the counter and remembering what the view had been from this exact location two nights ago.

I didn’t even try to puzzle out what the text said. It was from Bishop Bove, and my boss was not only terrible at texting but also really insecure about his terrible texting, so I knew he would call right after he sent the text to make sure I got it (and then translate it for me.)

Sure enough, my phone rang a moment later, The Walking Dead theme song echoing in my kitchen. Normally I would hum a couple of bars, normally I would be more than happy to talk to the gruff, principled man who was reforming our diocese and fighting for reform alongside me, but today, I only felt a prickling trepidation, as if he knew somehow what I had done last night. As if he would guess it the minute he heard my voice. “Hello?”

“Are you going to the Mid-America Clergy Convention next year?” Bishop Bove asked, skipping straight to business. “I want to put a panel together. And I want you on it.”

“I haven’t decided yet,” I said, and I realized my palms were actually getting sweaty, like I’d been called to the principal’s office or pulled over or something. Shit. If I felt this nervous on the phone with him, what would I do when I saw him in person?

“I think this is finally the year we’ll get the panel we want in there,” the bishop said. “You know how long I’ve pushed for it.”

The panel we want…the panel on abuse. Bishop Bove had submitted proposals to the continuing clergy education organization for the last four years and had been shot down every time. But the leadership within the organization had shifted, younger organizers were in charge, and I knew that Bove had been told privately that he would finally get his controversial panel.

But how was I going to sit in a hotel ballroom staring at a sea of priests and presume to lecture them on the perils of errant priest sexuality? I glanced down at my countertop, where I’d slipped inside Poppy. Not all the way. Not all the way, but enough to come. Enough to make her come. I rubbed my eyes, trying to block out the sight.

Could a vow be not all the way broken? Could a sin be not all the way committed?

Of course not. And even if no one ever knew about it, I realized that I’d destroyed my legitimacy with myself, and maybe that was worse than my public legitimacy being destroyed. What had I gotten myself into? Was I ever going to be able to let myself speak about—preach about—the things I cared the most for again?

“Tyler?”

“If you get the panel, I’ll be there,” I mumbled, still rubbing my eyes. I was seeing sparks.

Better than seeing my sins.

“I knew you would. How’s St. Margaret’s? How’s Millie? She gave the diocesan bookkeeper hell last week for misplacing your quarterly tithe reports. I heard she reduced the poor man to tears.”

“Everything’s good here, everything is going really well,” I lied. “Just gearing up for all the fall youth stuff.”

And you know, halfway fucking hopeful converts.

“Good. I’m proud of you, Tyler. I don’t say that often enough, but the work you’ve done in that town has been nothing short of a miracle.”

Stop, I begged him silently. Please stop.

“You are doing Christ’s work, Tyler. You are such an example.”

Please, please stop.

“Well, I’ll let you go. And the panel—I’ll text you the moment I hear.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Fine, I’ll call. Goodbye, Tyler.”

I hung up and stared at my phone a minute. I had woken up telling myself that yesterday was my starting over day. My being chaste day. And that today would be even easier. So why did I feel like my sins were still haunting me? Still dogging my steps?

Because you haven’t confessed them, Tyler.

I was an idiot. I should have done this at the very beginning. I sat on one side of the booth every week—why hadn’t it occurred to me to seek out the other side? To seek out the absolution and accountability that every person needed?

Next week. I would go down to Kansas City next Thursday to visit my confessor—a man I went to seminary with—and then I would have dinner with Mom and Dad and everything would be so much better.

I felt a little swell of relief at this plan. It was all going to be okay.

Poppy had come to Mass yesterday morning and sought me out afterwards to arrange our lunch plans for today. I’d wanted to have lunch with her right then—or have her for lunch, I hadn’t been sure—but she’d ducked away the moment our plans were figured out, and then I’d been swarmed by the usual crowd of after-service lingerers. Was she trying to keep her distance? And if so, was it because she wanted to? Or as a perceived favor to me?

The thought that this would be how we would behave around each other from now on—businesslike and abrupt—made me acutely miserable.

Which was stupid, because it was what I had wanted—no, what I should want—but I didn’t. I wanted both lives—the life where we were believer and priest and the life where we were man and woman—and every moment that passed without my mouth on Poppy’s skin, more and more of my willpower bled away, until I was left with the uncomfortable knowledge that I would endure whatever guilt or punishment I had to in order to touch her again.

Today these thoughts still clouded my head when I gathered my things and walked the two blocks to the nearest winery. I had expected to see Poppy by herself but was pleasantly surprised to see her chatting animatedly with Millie in the wine garden, an open bottle of something white and chilled on the table.

Poppy waved me over. “I invited Millie—I hope that’s okay?”

“Of course, it’s okay,” Millie interrupted before I could answer. “This boy can barely tell time, let alone budget for a major project.”

I mock-frowned at her. “I’ll have you know that I’ve got a very organized pile of Post-It Notes and bar napkins in this bag.”

Millie huffed, as if I’d confirmed every one of her darkest fears. I glanced over to Poppy, some immature part of me wanting to make sure that she had laughed and then wishing I hadn’t once I took in how marvelous she looked. She wore turquoise skinny jeans and a nowhere-near-loose enough t-shirt, a soft thin cotton that reminded me of the shirt she wore Saturday night…the shirt I’d sucked her nipples through. Her hair was in a messy braid thrown over one shoulder, and her eyes were more green than brown in the sunlight filtering in through the vines covering the pergola, and her lips were back in their trademark red, and why did she have to be so fucking sexy all the damn time?

“Sit, my boy, before the Riesling gets warm,” Millie told me. “Now, Poppy, tell Father Bell what you just told me.”

I pulled out a wrought iron chair and settled in, already sweating in the early September heat. Millie poured a third glass of cool wine and I accepted it, grateful to have something I could stare at other than Poppy.

“Well,” Poppy started, “to start off, I’m not familiar with what you guys are doing for fundraising or what you have done in the past, so I don’t want to step on any toes or anything.”

“You won’t,” I promised.